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One Person's Experience

From Impulse to Obsession to Control

By Jessica Brandon

In a past edition of TG Forum, Cindy Martin wrote about how some of us tend to lack control when it comes to crossdressing and that the impulse we have to crossdress sometimes gets the best of us. After having read that piece, I found myself drifting back to my teen years when I first started crossdressing and had next to no control over what I was doing.

I was all of fourteen when I donned my first dress from a bag of old clothes my mom was planning to donate to Goodwill, more out of curiosity than anything else and found it to have been a fun experience. I can still remember what that dress looked like: petal pink with puffy sleeves, a high neck and a swishing, pleated skirt I thought was so cool. Admittedly, I looked more than a tad ridiculous, the sleeves were short, I couldn't fasten the high collar because the buttons were too small and was barely able to reach in back of me to zip it up, but I still enjoyed wearing it.

At first, wearing my mom's clothing was a hobby, and I settled for for the stuff she was going to give away. But after she did, I was crushed, the means for me to enjoy my hobby had been taken away. Then I decided that the only way I could continue enjoying my hobby was to wear mom's regular clothes. Even though I knew I could get into all sorts of trouble since I didn't have the courage to tell her (or rather, was smart enough not to, fearing she'd go through the roof if I did reveal my secret), I just HAD to get my thrill from wearing her clothes.

Continuing my hobby required developing a talent for stealth since my grandparents lived with mother and me at the time, so I had to deceive not just one, but three people under the same roof. In the beginning, I sneaked into mom's closet once or twice a week, picked out a nice dress and wore it behind the closed (and locked) doors of my bedroom for thirty minutes at a time before returning it to the closet, putting it in the exact same place I found it. I was just paranoid enough to believe mom knew exactly where she put every stitch of clothing in her closet.

But, in time, as my hobby evolved into an obsession, once or twice a week eventually became once every day as I couldn't get enough of wearing mom's clothes, I had so much fun I couldn't get enough. Although my grandparents were home almost all the time, I was willing to take the risk of detection in order to enjoy my obsession.

Not even when mom was home, was I able to stop myself from raiding her closet. There were even a few occasions when I'd sneak into her room while she slept to spirit away an item or two. My need to wear women's clothing was THAT strong! Whenever mom would show off a new outfit she bought, I pretended not to be all that interested while, silently, I cheered because I would eventually get to wear it.

And I wore everything she had. I'd even go so far as to say I got more use out of mom's c lothes than she did. If it fit, it was fair game for me in my raids. There had been plenty times during my high school years when I came within a hair's breadth of getting caught, and the fear left me shaken enough to vow never to so much as open mom's cl oset ever again. However, such vows never lasted more than a day, if that.

Never having been an alcoholic or an addict, I have no concept of what it's like to be in the grip of an addiction that I can't control, yet, my compulsion to crossdress was as close as I came to being a prisoner of something I couldn't control.

Despite the emotional dangers that came with being caught, the thrill, the rush that came from taking that risk to satisfy my addiction was incredibly stimulating. In time, I earned enough money to buy my own things which I hid in various places throughout the ho use where we all lived. Where I kept my deepest secret.

I suppose my dance of deceit and reckless impulse would've gone on under that roof for years had I not joined the Navy in 1976. When I left home for Boot Camp in July of that year for nine weeks, that marked the longest period of time I had been away from home since I was ten and went to summer camp for two weeks. It wasn't easy at first, being away from mom's closet, I felt an awful sense of withdrawal, being separated from something I loved to do, but in time, as Boot Camp dragged on (pardon the pun), the need to crossdress began to lessen.

And, as the need lessened, I gained a sense of control over my hobby turned obsession for the first time in three years, and I actually felt good about myself and my growing ability to control my need to crossdress. Unfortunately, once a came home on two week leave, all that control I gained went right out the window and I went back to my old ways, almost as if I hadn't been away at all. That worried me.

Then, in December of that same year, I left home for my first ship which was stationed in Pearl Harbor, not exactly right around the corner from home in Philadelphia.

Once again, I felt those emotional pangs of withdrawal that came from being separated from mom's closet and it was murder, leaving me a wreck. In fact, it got so bad that at one point on a weekend I had free, I rented a room at a fleabag hotel in downtown Honolulu, then went to a nearby thrift shop where I some fifteen bucks on a cheap looking dress, a ratty wig and clunky shoes and proceeded to spend almost the entire weekend locked up in room wearing that stuff, only reverting to male attire when I wen t to eat. But I threw the stuff away before returning to my ship.

Then, in August of 1977, my ship transferred from Hawaii to Japan, which was even further away from the old home town. Since I was so far away , I was forced to accept the fact that I wouldn't be able to dress as much as I would like anymore. It was either that or go crazy. At one point, I was away from home for an entire year and I had to force myself to exert control over my need to crossdress. I viewed this as being a purge or sorts, the only difference being I didn't throw anything away, instead, I w as merely separated from it by some six or seven thousand miles.

As the years went on and I went from ship to ship, the opportunities I had to dress became decreased, as did my desire. Even when I was stationed at a shore facility in Philly and I could go home every night, the craving to dress wasn't nearly as overwhelming as it was in my youth. Maturity, and distance helped me to control my obsession instead of the other way around, and I felt very good about that. Today, that uncontrollable impulse to crossdress is non-existent, I now control what is a passion for me, though an infrequent one instead of an obsession.

I see this as one of the great personal victories in my life. Had I not gained control over my crossdressing, chances are it might've wrecked my life had my family or friends ever found out about it. I feel good about having established that all important sense of control through hard work, dedication, more than a bit of suffering and a twenty year career in the Navy. In the end, control over the things in your life is a beautiful thing.



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